Kelvin Redvers’ Cold Road thrills and chills northern audiences

“My wife almost broke my hand, she was squeezing it so hard.”

“My girlfriend was clenching my wrist the whole movie!”

Indigenous filmmaker Kelvin Redvers says the feedback from northern audiences who’ve seen his feature film Cold Road has been “overwhelmingly positive.”

An in-progress screening of the thriller opened the Yellowknife International Film Festival last week. Redvers also screened the movie – which he says is in its final stages, but not quite finished – in his hometown of Hay River.

“It was absolutely an honour and actually really helpful,” he said of those chances to share his work with northerners.

“The North was so tremendously instrumental to making this movie happen. There were so many people who moved mountains for us to be able to shoot the movie in the Northwest Territories.”

Cold Road was shot in the South Slave. Many northerners will be familiar with the locales and landscapes depicted, particularly the territory’s highways.

“I’ve been driving the highways up here for so long,” Redvers said. “If you drive these roads by yourself, you can be by yourself for hours on end, which can both feel kind-of lonely but also kind-of beautiful.”

The film includes scenes that feature driving stunts, and one with just a touch of movie magic in the form of carefully constructed CGI.

Cold Road follows an Indigenous woman and her dog as she drives home to her isolated northern First Nation in the winter, while a stranger in a semi-truck hunts her.

Redvers described the film as “like an old-fashioned kind of thriller” that follows a main character on an increasingly tense journey.

“It’s a woman who has to use all of her resources to figure out how to get out of this situation that is pretty dire,” he said. “It’s thrilling, it’s emotional.”

Redvers said he expects the film will likely be completed some time this month. It will then be ready for theatrical release.

“Feature movies are incredibly difficult and this is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And it wouldn’t have been possible without the North,” he said. “We’re so glad that you got to have a sneak peek.”